Color Me Red
by Adreus
Summary: spoilers for episode 111 — Ryoga almost wishes Yuma were in a coma. It would be easier. —Ryoga, Yuma.


**Notes: **Spoilers for episode 111. Mood music was Ellie Goulding's "I Need Your Love".

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_Color Me Red_

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Waiting around in hospital rooms is nothing new to him. He probably spends more time there than he does at school and home combined; really, his internal GPS sets Rio's room as the default, his feet carry him there without consulting his mind, and it's been that way for a while, no reason for it to change until a few months ago, so snapping back into the habit is... uncomfortably easy.

Thing is... his hands twitch, when he's with Rio. They... they want to hold Yuma's hands, and he can't sit still and brood like he used to, and he has to shake himself and his legs are trembling and he has to consciously stop that, too, but slowly, surely, he finds himself getting up, and his feet carry him downstairs, to the parking garage, to his bike. To Yuma's street, to his home, to his side. And...

Ryoga scowls, almost wishes that Yuma were in a coma, too. It would be easier—hey, don't get him wrong, it's just that—well, wouldn't it? Wouldn't it be easier if Yuma was down under, gone for reasons Ryoga can't control and gone to places Ryoga can't reach, instead of upstairs in that damned attic on that damned hammock, his back to the entrance and the window shut closed, eyes lifeless and voice hoarse and ears deaf to the world? Wouldn't an unconscious body in a smelly, boring hospital room be better than an unanimated boy in a dark, treasure-filled attic? Well? Wouldn't it?

He expects to be tired when he sees him, tired and exhausted and wanting to hold him, but that doesn't happen—his blood boils instead, he needs to punch something, he needs to punch _everything_, and he drops down back into Yuma's room so he doesn't have to look at whatever's left of Yuma, and Ryoga's things are on Yuma's desk because he was here three hours ago and his clothes are folded in Yuma's empty drawer because Ryoga stayed the night, and his head spins, spins, too many things to take in with too little time to digest it all, who the damned hell is _he_, never mind, it doesn't matter, not when Yuma—not when Rio—but he—

He gets—he starts getting mad, because he can't sleep at Yuma's and he can't sleep at Rio's and he can't sleep at home, there's no escape from thoughts and from helplessness and anger and frustration and _all_ of this, and sometimes Yuma drags himself downstairs when Akari comes up to yell at him to eat, but then he doesn't eat anything, and neither does Ryoga but Ryoga can _manage_, he's not—he hasn't—and then Yuma climbs back upstairs and hides in the dark, where he doesn't look out the window and doesn't play with the key that's not there, just holds onto a picture of his parents, clutched to his chest like he wants it to fall through and sit next to his heart, an extension of himself, a longing for an intangible love wrapped around his being like a shield.

And Ryoga is getting sick of it, sick of seeing Yuma so sad and so gone and so pathetic, and one day when Rio doesn't move and Kaito doesn't answer when Ryoga calls to yell at someone that will listen, he loses it, he doesn't care, he stomps up into Yuma's attic and yanks the frame from Yuma's hands, glares at Yuma's shocked face, and smashes it on the floor in one fell swoop.

"Get up," he says, biting his tongue, and when Yuma's face contorts in anger he slams open the windows and shouts, "Get up! He's gone, I don't care, _get up_!"

"Go away," Yuma mutters, the brief anger fading, and he rolls over, and that only makes Ryoga angrier.

"Stop it!" He takes hold of Yuma and shakes him, and is he shaking, too, or is that the adrenaline and the anger and the frustration pulsing through him? "Stop it! Just stop and _get up_ because he's gone but I'm here! I'm here, and Kaito's here and we're alive and we're going to go and _kick the Barians' collective_"—god dammit—"_asses_! I don't care if I have to go without you!

"Then go," he says, and it's quiet, it's broken, and Ryoga yells out in irritation and pulls at his own hair and backs off and yells, "I hate you!", and Yuma stiffens, and Ryoga goes on, "I hate that I ever met you! I hate that you ever made friends with me," and there's heat, heat in his eyes and he can't see it's blurry for the dumb stupid tears he's crying when he shouts, "And most of all I hate that you make me _care_ about you!"

And then Yuma has the nerve to say, slowly, "I... hate me, too."

"Shut _up_! Just _shut up_!" You didn't do anything, you couldn't have done anything, get up, _get up_, but Ryoga can't even say it anymore, articulation be damned, so he slams a fist into the wall and shakes himself and forces Yuma back on the hammock so he can sit with him, and Ryoga holds his head in his hands and the ache is back, in his mind in his memory in his hands in his heart, and then Yuma, who knows that Ryoga doesn't really hate him, who knows that he doesn't really hate himself, says quietly, "He said he... that he's counting on me."

"I am, too," Ryoga grunts, and he doesn't sound happy about it.


End file.
